Employment Rights Bill

Sarah Russell Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of the Employment Lawyers Association, the Industrial Law Society, Unite the Union, Community and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.

The treatment of women in Harvey Weinstein’s companies, UKFast, and plenty of other organisations across the UK is notoriously horrific. A significant number of women work in workplaces that are basically run like medieval fiefdoms. Corporate governance in the UK appears to largely serve to cover up sexual harassment, and to do very little to prevent it.

As someone who has negotiated settlement agreements for a lot of women who have suffered sexual harassment or maternity discrimination, I do not recognise the descriptions of UK employees that I hear from Conservative Members. They appear to regard employees as desperate to bring employment tribunals at any possible opportunity, but my experience of representing women in those situations is that they are desperate to avoid bringing employment tribunal claims. They think that if they talk about what has happened to them, it will cause them significant reputational damage—that they will be blamed for their experiences, and that they will never work again.

As such, they sign settlement agreements meaning that they cannot talk about what has happened to them. They do so knowingly, and often for really quite small sums of money, because they are terrified of the amount it will cost them in legal fees if they try to pursue a claim to tribunal. That is one of the reasons why I am proud to be a member of trade unions and to have given advice to trade union members, because that enables those women to get the support they need to assert their basic workplace rights.

A 2016 TUC report talked about the fact that young women in particular, as well as women on zero-hours contracts, seem to be reporting higher levels of sexual harassment at work than other, older women. In short, those of us who get to a certain age like to hope that things have got better because we stop personally experiencing sexual harassment at work. Unfortunately, the reality is that younger workers, who have less access to advice and support and are more economically vulnerable, continue to receive that harassment year after year. Things are not getting better. Employment rights are fantastic, and it is great that we are improving access to them through this Bill, but when Conservative Members oppose our moves to restrict the use of zero-hours contracts, they do not understand—so far as I can tell—that those contracts, which keep women in precarious employment, are one of the mechanisms by which sexual harassment occurs. As such, I commend the Bill to the House.